Club information

Nickname: I Crociati (The Crusaders)

Ground: Stadio Ennio Tardini

Capacity: 27,906

Founded: 1913

A football club was founded in the city of Parma in July 1913 and known as Verdi Football Club, in honour of the centenary of the celebrated composer Giuseppe Verdi - only in Italy? Later that year many of the club’s players founded Parma Football Club.

Parma Football Club started playing league football in 1919 and began construction of the Stadio Ennio Tardini two years later. The club became a founder member of Serie B and would remain in Serie B for three years before being relegated and changing its name to Associazione Sportiva Parma in 1931. In the 1935-36 season Parma became a founding member of Serie C, where the club stayed until winning promotion back to Serie B in 1943.

Until the 1990s Parma had never really competed for major trophies. Then, bankrolled by Calisto Tanzi, the club won eight major trophies in ten years between 1992 and 2002 and achieved its best ever league finish as runners-up in the 1996-97 season. In this period Parma seriously challenged the established dominance of the Italy’s giants: Juventus, Milan and Internazionale - the only Italian teams to have had more success in European competition than Parma.